Video systems can be used to determine characteristics of a moving mass. One common application of such systems is in sports analysis and testing in which characteristics of a moving object are extracted and used as a reference. In golf, for example, a golf ball can be extracted from video frames and successive frames can be compared to determine the flight of the ball. Similar systems can be used in baseball to determine the speed, spin, and flight-path of a ball. Laser beams placed near the pitching mound can be used to characterize the speed of a baseball bat based on the speed at which the bat intersects the laser beams. These systems depend on the relatively slow speed of the moving mass and the relatively unchanging shape of the mass. Imaging systems are also used to create 3D models of stationary objects. These systems are inadequate. Improved systems and methods are needed to model aeronautical objects, fluid flow, ballistic events and other mass systems for modeling mass systems moving at speeds exceeding the capacity of currently available video cameras.